


We Steal Our Dreams From Ourselves

by msmorland



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 08:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9713885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmorland/pseuds/msmorland
Summary: The first time around, before Mal’s overdose, before the hiatus, there wouldn’t have been any question: Eames could be found not far from wherever Arthur was. They’d had something then, something nascent and wonderful, as their years of bickering and mutual pigtail-pulling began shifting into whatever deeper thing it had always masked.But then Mal had overdosed, and Cobb had fled home to his kids, and somehow, Arthur and Eames had been left holding the pieces.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For sage-the-empress, whose prompt was "guitar."
> 
> I've been wanting to tackle an AU for these two for a while, so thank you for a prompt that gave me an excuse to do so!

Someday, Arthur promises himself as he drives through Middle-of-Nowhere, New York, at three in the morning, he will work for actual adults.

And by actual adults, Arthur means people like himself: people who go to sleep at a reasonable hour, remember to pay their bills on time, and don’t _jump in freezing ponds in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night_.

Of course, if the sorts of people Arthur worked for were more like Arthur, they wouldn’t need to hire him to run their lives, would they?

Technically, Arthur is Inception’s manager, the person who organizes everything that needs to be organized for the whole band. And technically, Cobb was the one who’d hired him, or rather, Cobb and Mal were the ones who’d hired him, two years before the drug overdose that sent Mal to rehab and took the band out of the spotlight for a while.

This time around, with the band a few days away from the release of its new album, _dreamthieves_ , and the start of its comeback tour, things are different. Cobb, still reorganizing his life after the ups-and-downs of Mal’s recovery, has left the day-to-day operation of the tour to the rest of the band. Mal is spending as much time back in LA with the kids as possible. Yusuf and Ariadne, while not exactly what Arthur would call _mature_ , can at least be trusted to fend for themselves without setting anything on fire, offending anyone important, or stealing something and ending up in the tabloids.

Which means that Arthur’s job, this time around, is de facto babysitter to Eames. Who can’t be trusted not to do all of the above, and who apparently can’t even be left alone to sleep, because instead of sleeping he does things like drive out to the nearest body of water and dive into it for a nighttime swim in the middle of February while _forgetting to even bring a towel_.

(“The fact that I forgot the towel is the part that bothers you the most, darling, isn’t it?” Eames had said when he’d showed up, shivering and with chattering teeth, at the door of Arthur’s hotel room.

Arthur hadn’t told him that no, it was the thought that Eames might have seriously hurt himself that bothered Arthur the most. Instead, he’d just rolled his eyes, let Eames into his room, and shoved him toward the shower.)

So now Eames, guitarist and lead singer of Inception, faces the very real possibility of getting a cold just days before the start of a world tour, and Arthur is determined to avert this possibility by any means necessary, including looking for a 24-hour pharmacy so that he can get some Emergen-C into Eames immediately.

And then, when he gets back to the hotel, he is going to impress upon Eames just how very beyond this sort of thing he should be by now.

At this rate, Arthur thinks, as he finally finds a pharmacy and pulls into the parking lot, it’s going to be a very long tour.

* * *

When he gets back to the hotel, Arthur is relieved to find Eames still in Arthur’s room.

The first time around, before Mal’s overdose, before the hiatus, there wouldn’t have been any question: Eames could be found not far from wherever Arthur was. They’d had something then, something nascent and wonderful, as their years of bickering and mutual pigtail-pulling began shifting into whatever deeper thing it had always masked.

But then Mal had overdosed, and Cobb had fled home to his kids, and Yusuf and Ariadne had been lucky not to be as famous as the rest of them, and had been able, for a little while, to find relief in regular lives.

Somehow, Arthur and Eames had been left holding the pieces, including whatever almost-relationship they’d had. Arthur had found other work, and Eames had had enough money from Inception’s first album, _single-level_ , to keep him going for a while.

But Arthur hadn’t known what to say to Eames, without the day-to-day of the band’s life there anymore, and apparently Eames hadn’t known what to say to Arthur, either, because Arthur had waited two years for him to reach out, and instead they hadn’t spoken until the day Cobb had brought them all together to begin writing the new songs for _dreamthieves_.

They’re still not speaking all that much.

Now, Arthur dumps a packet of Emergen-C into a glass and shoves it at Eames.

“Drink this,” he says. “And then promise me you aren’t going to do anything like that again until after the tour is over and you aren’t scheduled to sing any more shows.”

“You can’t really get colds from being out in the wet,” Eames says, but at Arthur’s glare, he shuts up and drinks.

Arthur, suddenly exhausted, sinks into the other chair in the room and drops his head into his hands. He knows Eames isn’t going to get sick from being in a pond in the middle of the night. He knows he’s overreacting.

He’s surprised to find himself shaking.

“Darling,” he hears Eames say. “What…”

Arthur shakes his head. He’s not sure he could speak if he tried, but he also doesn’t want to, afraid that everything he hasn’t said to Eames for the last two years—hell, for all the years they’ve known each other—will come spilling out.

“Because of Mal,” Eames says, realizing. “I scared you, because you thought it was going to be another Mal.”

 _It would have been worse than Mal_ , Arthur thinks but doesn’t say. He loves Mal, has considered her one of his best friends almost since meeting her, and her overdose is still a sore spot he tries not to press on too hard. But she isn’t Eames.

Eames sets the now-empty glass on Arthur’s nightstand and gets up. He slides his feet back into his shoes, which are still squelching with water, and moves toward the door.

“I’ll let you get some sleep, pet,” he says. “Goodnight.”

“You’ve always scared me,” Arthur finally says, but Eames has already left the room.

* * *

Eames, being Eames—by which Arthur means, outrageously lucky and immune to the consequences of his mistakes—doesn’t get sick.

Instead, they start the tour off as planned two days later, and everything is...surprisingly normal. Cobb and Mal fly in from LA, bringing the kids along with a nanny for the first leg of the tour. Ariadne and Yusuf are, as always, both cheerful and laser-focused for every show. Eames gives his all each time he performs, even once the band starts getting tired.

When Eames sings the lyrics to the lead single on _dreamthieves_ , the ones they all wrote in those first days back together— _We steal our dreams from ourselves/who else could steal them so well?_ —Arthur gets the shivers.

The only thing that isn’t back to normal—that is, in fact, glaringly Not Normal—is Arthur-and-Eames. Inception’s members are as cohesive a group as they ever were—more cohesive this time, probably, sticking close together in the knowledge that one of them had almost been lost.

But not Arthur and Eames. Their infamous banter is broken.

“I haven’t heard you make one remark about the ‘giant stick up Arthur’s arse’ today, Eames,” Ariadne says, doing a terrible impression of Eames’s accent, as Arthur chases James around the backyard of the house the Cobbs have rented for this tour stop, trying to make sure James doesn’t eat any of Phillipa’s too-tiny toys.

“Arthur’s just doing what he needs to do,” Eames says.

That’s what Arthur can’t stand, and hasn’t been able to shake Eames out of since that night he’d jumped into the pond: Eames being careful with him.

Eames had never been careful with Arthur, before. Where everyone else had seen armor in Arthur’s suits and slicked-back hair and had backed away, Eames had teased Arthur and flirted with him. Slowly, Eames had cracked Arthur’s armor just by being so very Eames with him, and Arthur had learned how to tease and flirt back.

Now Arthur’s armor is entirely gone, worn away by Eames and Mal and life, and Eames isn’t here—not in the way Arthur had always expected him to be here.

But, Arthur thinks, as he wrestles a small plastic elephant out of James’s even smaller hands, they’ve been able, through effort and luck, to get back so much of what they’ve lost. Why not this, too?

* * *

Arthur seizes the moment a few days later.

The tour has gotten bigger as they’ve traveled. They started with small venues, ones where they knew the crowds would be warm and friendly, to reacclimate after their years away. But now they’re in the middle of the tour, the segment with the largest venues and the loudest fans, many of whom are waiting at the stage door as Arthur and Eames walk out at the end of the night.

They have official security—a lot of it, for these large venues—but Arthur is a handy bodyguard himself, and it’s an old ritual he and Eames had shared, leaving the venue together after the show. Arthur always found it privately thrilling, as fans lined the path leading away from the stage door, screaming Eames’s name, to be the one who got to go wherever Eames was going.

It’s a ritual he’s let slide, this time around, too worried about how his fear might betray him.

It’s time, Arthur decides, to bring it back.

When Arthur falls into step beside Eames near the stage door, Eames hesitates a second, a pause that is perceptible maybe only to Arthur. Then he squares his shoulders, and they push through the doors together.

The noise of the fans is louder than Arthur remembered. It crests over him and breaks, a wave of screams and whistles, and then, suddenly, Arthur is fine.

He straightens up, striding confidently beside Eames, scanning the crowd, just in case.

His body remembers how to do this.

Arthur feels Eames relax beside him, confident that, at last, Arthur’s got this.

“I love you, Eames!” a girl screams next to them, so loudly it’s distinct from the noise of the crowd.

“See, Arthur?” Eames says, his voice warm and teasing. “She loves me.”

“Don’t let it get to your head, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, as he holds the door of the waiting black car open for Eames. “She just hasn’t met you yet.”

Arthur is immensely gratified to hear Eames laugh.

* * *

Bit by bit, Arthur comes back to himself.

He continues the nightly walks with Eames from the stage door to the car, leaves the nanny to chase after James and Phillipa in the Cobbs’ rented backyards and living rooms. He slowly lets go of the impulse to scrutinize Mal every time she enters the room. He attends one of Ariadne and Yusuf’s regular Guitar Hero sessions and acquits himself decently well, despite being the least musical person in the group.

And slowly, he and Eames begin to reknit things between them.

When the group goes out to a club after one of their shows, Eames squeezes in next to Arthur, close enough that their thighs touch. When they leave the club, Eames’s hand lingers at the small of Arthur’s back. A few days later, when Eames idiotically makes a political comment to a reporter and Arthur is left cleaning up the mess that is the subsequent viral news cycle, Eames leaves him a sarcastic apology-slash-thank-you gift: a signed photo of himself on Arthur’s pillow.

 _You’re still you_ , Arthur thinks, looking at it. He’s torn between the urges to laugh and go directly to Eames’s room and throttle him, and then he thinks, _and I’m still me_.

He wonders, as he’s always wondered, how he can find someone so infuriating and so hilariously delightful at the same time.

He guesses Eames probably wonders the same thing about him.

* * *

And then, one day, Arthur is ready. In fact, he can’t wait any longer.

It’s a Sunday, and they’re at the Cobbs’ latest rental house for what has become their traditional weekly barbecue. They all spend enough time with each other during the week, of course, but these Sunday gatherings are different: a time to do things they don’t normally do in the course of their rock star lives. There are burgers and strawberries and soda and water guns. Sometimes there’s a fire pit.

It feels like regular life. It feels like the right place, Arthur thinks, to move things forward.

Arthur finds Eames sitting by himself in front of a small pond lined with stones.

“Please tell me even you know that pond is too small to jump into,” Arthur says, sitting down next to Eames.

He’s expecting a laugh, a clever retort, but when he turns toward Eames, he finds Eames looking at him solemnly.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Eames says. “That night with the pond. I wasn’t trying to do that at all. I just wanted to get things back to normal. And I thought, usually I do stupid things that provoke you and you do your Arthur thing and all is well again. So I did something stupid to provoke you, only it ended up being even stupider than I intended.”

“I know,” Arthur says. “It’s okay. I needed a little more time, but you had the right idea.”

“Oh, did I?” Eames says, faking indignation and laughing at the same time. “You condescending prat.”

“Be nice to me,” Arthur says, “or I might change my mind about kissing you.”

Eames is still laughing when Arthur kisses him, and the kiss is everything _they_ are, because they’ve never stopped being a _them_ : joyful and serious, sweet and fierce, precise and utterly messy at the same time.

“I know you, pet,” Eames says, kissing him again. “You aren’t going to change your mind.”

“No,” Arthur agrees. “I’m not.”


End file.
